The Year of Crash and Burn (Or, Merida is Forced to Adjust)
by ABirdOfMyTongue
Summary: Hogwarts AU ROTBTD Merida's 6th year at Hogwarts will go perfectly. Sure, Jack is an idiot who insists on calling her Red. Merida's a badass keeper, not a T. Swift album. And sure, Puzzie keeps signing her up for Peer Mediation which she doesn't need. At least Hic's the dependable geek he's been since 1st year. He's coming back from a summer in Romania tomorrow. (Oh no)


Chapter One "Some Things Never Change"

Merida hadn't always been a colossal bitch. Ok, maybe she had. Putting aside that "bitch" was a totally sexist term meant to put down woman of power, and that Merida was fully against such terms, it was the truth. Merida had never liked being a wimp. Nobody was shocked when she was sorted into Gryffindor. When she believed in something, which happened fiveteen to twenty times a day, she said so. When she disagreed, she tended to yell. Some people blamed her fiery temper on her bushy red hair. She punched those people. It's difficult to be a raging asshole with a broken jawbone.

Jack had figured that our pretty quick. Nobody calls a DunBroch irish. That had been six years ago, back when Jack was still a brunet and Runzel just sounded like a silly sort of jam. Jack's hair had experienced one of Hiccup's stray experimental charm in third year and turned a permanent platinum blonde. Hiccup had been horrified. Jack had cracked up. That pretty much summed up their entire relationship.

Despite the whole punched-in-the-face-on-the-first-day-of-Hogwarts thing, Jack and Merida had quickly realized they had more in common than originally thought. They both loved competition, pranks and violence, so they quickly gravitated to quidditch. Jack, being the wizard born, had been flying before he could walk. Merida, the muggle born scottish princess, took to it quickly once she was told she would never be any good. (She went on to become the youngest keeper ever in the history of Hogwarts in her second year, but she didn't like to brag.)

Hiccup, on the other hand, was not so enchanted. He had always been a pacifist, first and foremost. If it wasn't the violence, it was the arguing. Every single time Hiccup raised his hand to give an answer, Merida had been right there with a witty retort.

"It's dragon bile, sir"

"They all threw up when they saw Hiccup's face!"

"It's LeviosA not leviOsa"

"You're a morOn"

"Merida, can you please stop being so annoying?"

"Hiccup, can you please not be such a little girl?"

Hiccup spent the first semester thinking Merida was a stupid scottish thug (although he didn't say it to her face, he wasn't an idiot).

"Why does she always have to pick on me Jack? Isn't there a innocent puppy somewhere she should be roasting over the fire?"

"Hiccup," Jack retorted, "She has a two puppy a day limit. Plus, she wanted to roast something less likely to fight back."

"Jerk"

"Bitch"

Hiccup gasped, "Jack! Don't swear!"

"Oh my gosh you are such a pussy"

"JACK!"

Merida hated the little genius twerp who had stolen her spotlight by being sorted into Gryffindor. The sorting hat had shifted for what seemed like hours before making a decision. That little nerd had ravenclaw written all over him. How dare he go right before her, cementing himself as the first Gryffindor of their year. Usurping Merida's rightful seat. She whinged about him at the most inconvenient times.

Jack was always quick to come to Hiccup's rescue when the kid in question was out of earshot, "You should probably lay off teasing Hiccup It's not his fault he's the smartest wizard in our year."

Merida shot back a rapid fire response without even considering the question, "He isn't that smart." Jack shot her a patented are-you-kidding-me squint.

Merida followed up with the yeah-obviously-you-idiot eye roll. "Really Jack, is this the best time to discuss humane geek treatment?"

"What's wrong with now?"

"We're upside down"

She was right. Her florescent orange hair fell in gravity-defying spirals in a halo around her freckled face before finally submitting to the law of gravity and bending limply towards the floor. The cascade of curls gave her typical exasperated expression a comical slant, and a stupid grin snuck up the sides of Jack's stupid face. "All the better for a new perspective!"

"I can't believe you're siding with the nerd." Merida retorted.

"He's pretty cool when you get to know him."

"Honestly, could he be a bigger geek? He spent twenty minutes teaching the Gryffindor's how to do a perfect accio during valuable lunch time." Merida paused to let that sink in, "What a loser."

"Just think about it, ok?"

"Whatever, are we gonna stick these stink bombs to the ceiling or what?"

Jack did bring them together in the end. Not that he had meant to, he was kind of an idiot. Albeit, a very well intentioned idiot. The last thing Hiccup wanted was to spend more time with the she-devil, especially on a sunny Friday afternoon. All Hiccup wanted to do was to curl up in a massive window in an obscure hallway with a The Raising and Training of Dragons. But, once again, Jack had suckered him into something he didn't want to do: quidditch, of all things. Hiccup constantly questioned their halls were remarkably quiet, as everybody with any friends at all was down by the lake. The boys' footsteps echoed of the stonework, setting an erie rhythm.

A cocky smile stuck itself to Jack's lips and he swung his left arm back and forth in rhythm with the steps, his right arm clung to the Firebolt slung over his shoulder. He set a quick pace. Even as an eleven year old, Jack was mistakenly cool. Hiccup, on the other hand, clutched The Raising and Training of Dragons with two hands and his gangly frame swayed as he half-ran to keep up. He complained all the way to the quidditch pitch, "Jack, why don't you go practice while I sit out in the sun and enjoy a beautiful Friday without taking a ball to the face."

Jack faked a dramatic stab in the heart by swamping his left hand across his chest and heaving a heavy sigh, "It really hurts that you have so little faith in my aim."

"It really hurt when the quaffle collided with my scull." Hiccup replied in a monotone.

"Wow, we really aren't letting that one go?"

"I had to spend the night in the infirmary!" Hiccup proclaimed, his monotone so soon abandoned.

"Oh, you crybaby. Just let it go already. It's been ages!" Jack teased, his grin disappearing into the corners of his mouth.

Hiccup's voice was gradually gaining octaves and moving into a (very manly) squeak, "This was last Saturday!"

An unmistakable yell joined the conversation with a, "Heya boys!"

Merida's skinny pale freckled arm slung itself around Jack's neck, and he struggled to spit out stray hairs. "Heya Mer!"

"What are you doing here Hiccup," Merida tilted her head out of confusion, "Aren't you photodermatol? Don't you explode or something when you go out into the sun?"

"Wow, five syllables. Good job Merida. Do you want a treat?"

Jack chimed in, "We're going down to the quidditch pitch. It's a, sunny, and stuff."

"Well said Frost."

"Thank you, princess." Jack mocked a pretentious bow, and Merida shoved him, right into Hiccup.

"Ouch!" yelled Jack. Luckily, Hiccup blocked his fall. Unluckily, nobody blocked Hiccup's fall.

An upset voice weed from the floor, "Jeez Merida, learn to take a joke."

Merida stopped slouching and reared her head. Her eyes took on a deadly shade of don't-you-dare. "Learn to take a punch Hiccup!"

"That's it," Hiccup pushed off the flagstones and craned his neck, so his head was level with Merida's chin, "I don't have to take this!"

"Wanna bet, wimp?"

"Bully"

"Geek"

"Brute"

"Looser"

"Princess"

"That's it, you're a dead man Haddock!"

That's when the story gets fuzzy. According to Merida, this is when she pummeled Hiccup. She was kicking, punching and owning that wimp. According to Hiccup, the had her pinned underneath him, and he was holding her down. Hiccup maintains that the black eye was a lucky punch from underneath him, her slippery arm slipped out and socked him right in the eye. Meridia says this is scientifically impossible, Hiccup weighed only sixteen grams in first year and wasn't strong enough to hold down a piece of parchment.

To this day, Jack claims that they were hard core snogging for a full fourteen minutes until Filch rounded the corner. Fitch maintains that all students are demons the the thumb screws in the dungeon should be brought out of retirement. All he saw that day was a thriving mess of scrawny girl and scrawnier boy thrashing about in a heap on the floor, so he spoke those three little words, "YOU HAVE DETENTION!"

"I can't believe I hit a girl."

Thirty two minutes, two detention slips and two hundred and sixty steps later, Hiccup and Merida were Jack-less and working very hard not to make any eye contact. It was difficult. Their desks were smushed together and they were slowly working through a very large pile of dragon teeth. Merida was working very hard to think about anything other than where Hogwarts had been storing hordes of dragon teeth. Hiccup's stupid "friend" had bolted at the first sight of Filch's boot rounding the corner, and all the ornery old man had been able to make out was a bolt of brown and the sound of muffled laughter bouncing of the walls. All Hiccup had wanted was to curl up and read for hours, was that really too much to ask? He resolved to hate Jack for all eternity.

Merida had planned an entire afternoon for flying. She really needed to work on her keeping if she was ever going to beat Jack, and she really, really wanted to beat Jack. The last place she wanted to be was in the gloomy dungeons on a practically perfect Friday afternoon. "Oh let it go, you go in a lucky slap when you were flailing. Not exactly macho."

Merida barely made out his mumble, "Whatever, it's not like you're a real girl anyway." The minute Hiccup let it slip out, he regretted it. It wasn't like him to be so mean. Merida just really got under his skin.

The reaction was immediate, "WHAT DID YOU SAY?" thundered across the dungeon. It seemed to sweep up everything in it's path, whistling down the corridor and brushing past the shackles nailed into the wall, even managing to tousle Hiccup's hair. Well, that's how Merida saw it. She stared at Hiccup. Her right blue eyes met his dark brown, sizing up his intensity. She could take him, easy.

Maybe Hiccup felt horrible, but that was no reason to let Merida win. "What's your problem?" He stared right back, she wasn't getting the victory this time. They shoot lasers at each other for what seemed like an eternity, neither willing to admit defeat. Merida was tougher and meaner, but Hiccup cared more. He really needed the win. Eventually, Merida lowered her gaze to the thick grained wood of the desk and rubbed her thumb against the graffiti carved into the surface "Look, you think you're so smart. But you don't know me. You won't ever know me. So just leave me alone, ok?" She didn't raise her gaze, so after an awkward few seconds Hiccup went back to the mind numbing task of scrubbing icky dragon fangs with a toothbrush, and tried to push down the overwhelming feeling that he had done something wrong. It wasn't his fault she was such a bitch. Merida just stared at the table, without saying a word. The sound of soft bristles on black filled the room, awkwardly punctuating the stillness with wet smacks and scraping.

The awkwardness continued for what seemed like eons. It seeped through the seams of their prison cell, trickling through the cracks in the wall until it flooded the room. Time flowed like molasses. Seconds seemed like minutes, minutes became hours and hours felt like days. Hiccup snuck a quick peek at his pocket watch, it had been thirty seconds. Merida snuck a peek at Hiccup's pocket watch from behind the giant stack of dragon teeth, he was such a dork. Hiccup was drowning in the awkward, he couldn't take it any longer.

"Boy, these teeth are icky."

Merida eyed him warily, "That's because they're covered in soot. Dragons breath fire genius."

"Yeah," Hiccup started, "I know, I'm…. I'm just saying."

When he realized the conversation was nearing it's inevitable death, he attempted resuscitation."Isn't that weird?" Silence.

"You know, breathing fire. I wonder why they can do that. There are a lot of different theories on how that evolved. Some say it was an ancient defence mechanism, which makes sense. I mean, it would totally work on me. I don't want to be barbecue. Which brings up an interesting point, I mean, did dragons develop fire to cook their food? Does that mean that dragons were cooking before humans? If so, where dragons more evolved than us centuries ago? Or maybe, fire was a means of communication. The same way our hair advertises our health and attractiveness, a dragon's fire my signal his ability to mate. Sick dragons typically have low heat, or lose their flame entirely, although maybe that has more to do with the sinuses than anything else. Dragon sinuses are massive, actually, everything on a dragon is huge. Except for the tiny Terror, their wingspan is only three feet long on average. Isn't that weird? Dragons are so weird."

The whirlwind of words was out of Hiccup's mouth before he had time to consider. The rant had sucked the room dry, and he was out of air. He drew a shaky breath, and looked at Merida the way a optimistic antelope stares at a lion. Even her hair looked like a mane. (Wow, the author thought to herself. this metaphor is really holding up.) Merida chose to take pity on the poor boy. Besides, he was wrong. That meant she was right. Merida loved to be right.

"It's not that weird." Merida's words flew out quickly before she had a chance to regret them.

"Umm," Hiccup wasn't one to argue, but she was so wrong. If there was one thing he knew, it was dragons. And simple machines. And Hogwarts history. Hiccup knew a lot. He could definitely win this argument. Hiccup loved to win arguments.

"Their throats generate sparks. That's weird."

"Nu uh" Merida shot back.

Hiccup chimed in, "Yeah huh"

"Nu uh"

"Yeah huh"

"Nu uh"

"Yeah huh"

"Nu uh"

Ok, Merida was not one to put the kabosh on immature bickering, but enough was enough. "No, Hiccup you're wrong."

"I'm never wrong."

"Dragons may generate fire in their mouths, but humans generate water. I bet dragons think we're the weird ones for spitting saliva instead of sparks." Merida sat back, pleased with her win. A smirk snuck it's way across her face until it landed smack dab in the middle of her smile, her left lip curled upwards in satisfaction. Her arms crossed over her skinny frame in an act of complete defiance. It was over, the shrimpy twirp had nothing.

Hiccup's mouth flew open,. "Wow, I was wrong. That's so true." Merida's smirk grew larger, but something was off. Hiccup didn't look emotionally crushed, or even a little crumpled. In fact, his eyes lit up, and the dork didn't stop talking. "Maybe we and dragons are elemental brethren. Or- no- enemies! Maybe the clock is counting down until we realize how different we are. What happens then? A dragon war! No, the great dragon war! Wizards and dragons, wand against craw." Hiccup stopped to drop a dopey smile, and tilted his thick head, "Epic."

Merida felt cheated out of a victory. She was upset, she really was, and she tried to frown. But all she could see in front of her was that dopey smile poking out from behind a pile of black riding dragons' teeth. She felt the corners of her mouth lifting, Hiccup was just such a dork. There they were, two tiny first years smiling at each other somewhere deep down in the Hogwarts dungeons. But Merida's good grace was fleeting, and it only took a few seconds for the what am I doing? to filter through her brain. This had to stop.

"You are such a pansy."

"Whatever ginger"

"Geek"

"Meathead"

"Dork"

"Dork" Hiccup crossed his arms over his chest and slouched back in his seat, he had won this round.

Darn it, he had noticed the smile. Time to take quick, effective action, "Shut up Hic!" she yelled, far more high pitched than she would be willing to admit.

Ok, arguably not the best weapon in her arsonal. Darn it, what was that anyways? A moment of weakness? She was a DunBroch, and she didn't take any flack from anyone. Stupid geek dragon boy, he would pay for his insolence! But not today, today wasn't proving to be a good comeback day.

"Urgg!" she hung her heavy head in her hands and tried to ignore him for the rest of that horrible afternoon. Maybe that's why she missed Hiccup's smile, the one that appeared like a burst of sunlight when she had called him "Hic".

Jack took credit for the not-enemyship. He claimed it had been his plan all along, and to his credit he took Merida's inevitable ensuing physical abuse like a man, with very little crying. The relationships between the trio continued to be a bit shaky, and if asked each would claim that they hated each other. Still, it was hard to ignore that they managed to the restricted section, the potions closet and the prefects bathroom in the first semester. It could be argued that they also broke out of the castle and into the forbidden forest, but they liked to shove that particular memory far down deep never to be revisited. Needless to say, Merida would never think about unicorns the same way again.

Merida smiled at the memories, it sure had been a while since that first day in the dungeons. Of course, she didn't really consider the group complete until second year, when a strange French girl named Rapunzel transferred from Beblebruxons. Merida had disliked Punzie at first because she had a ridiculous amount of hair and liked astronomy. Honestly, who liked astronomy? Not to mention those flowers in her hair, and her love of the color pink! What a pansy. But then, Merida disliked everyone at first. Frost called it "trust issues", whatever. What did he know? Either way, Rapunzel won Merida over quickly when she knocked Jack out with a frying pan after catching Jack trying to sneak into the girls section during the house unity sleepover. (Reconciliation between the houses had become a serious focus after the great wizarding war, may blamed Slytherin's fall for the creation of the death eaters) Merida had gained some newfound respect for Punzie when she saw her wielding a weapon of mass destruction. Admittedly, it had been nice to have a female friend. Merida had never really liked girls on principal, but Punzie was different. She was uber-feminine, but tough at the same time. Punzie had helped Merida stop being ashamed of her girliness, and it was really nice to have someone to talk to when the boys were being too darn stupid for their own good. The four of them had ravaged Hogwarts, like a whirlwind of destruction, sweeping everything out of their way. That's how Merida liked to think of it.

Lots of things had changed since second year, Merida had taken the Gryffindor quidditch team by storm, quickly becoming a star keeper and leading the Gryffindor team to victory in second, fourth and fifth year. The third year came down to a nail-biting semi-final in which Merida's hair had gotten in the way of what should have been a spectacular goal. After that, Merida had begged Punzie to teach her how to braid and had never worn her hair out of a plait again. Punzie had become even more beautiful than she was second year, and it hadn't gone unnoticed by their peers. Unfortunately, Puzie's Huffulpufian dedication to kindness ensured that no one was ever quite sure whether she reciprocated the feelings, poor wee lambs. Jack and been hit by Hiccups aforementioned stray charm and his platinum blond hair showed no signs of going away. He played lead chaser for Slytherin quidditch team. He was pretty darn good, but there was no chance Merida would ever say it to his face. Hiccup lead the class in most every subject, despite the disgruntled Ravenclaws. Merida took certain pride in the fact that she dominated Defence Against the Dark Arts. Take that Hiccup. Not that it was helping her in any way, she still had no idea what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. Everywhere she turned it seemed like her friends were changing without her, moving on and becoming adults right before her eyes, the traitors. Her only consolation was that Hiccup continued to be the same geeky dork he had been since first year. Some things would never change.


End file.
